Numbers Games

I have two contradictory thoughts about IQ tests: one is that they are racist and have a long history of being misused and misinterpreted and that they are essentially bullshit, especially for kids with disabilities. Second thought: they actually ARE measuring something, something that I'm good at, which is sort of like intelligence except with no application to the real world. Primera has in fact always performed badly on IQ tests. This bothers me. "She seems smart enough to me," I've said, only to be patted on the head and told, "It's a snapshot at this particular time." Yes, but it's blurry, and it's the wrong camera.

I can rationalize it six days till Sunday, but it has still always bothered me. It bothered me the time I threw the test across the room b/c her score was in the low average cognitive ability range. It bothered me the first time she was tested, when she didn't get an IQ score but did get a deeply depressing assessment showing her behind in just about every area you can measure. I called and left a blistering message on the supervisors phone after reading the report, going over every single subtest and saying why my kid got questions wrong even though she KNEW the material, as I could demonstrate if they let me show them. I ranted on and on and sounded like every other parent of a newly diagnosed child entering the system: in pain and denial, blahblah, get over it and start helping your kid.

I will always, always, always be grateful to Dr. McCarton, who went over the WPPSI results with us and said that Primera had some problems with abstraction, and when I pointed out her high score on Similarities and asked how she'd done well on that, Dr. McCarton started laughing and said, "Because she's SMART." And after that I was instantly in love with Dr. McC., even if I had the suspicion she was saying that because I needed to hear it.

Her speech therapists always thought she was a genius; doctors always thought she was smart, every single one of them; her examiners, not so much.

But anyway. The point, and I do have one, I think, is that she gets another IQ test score back and it is a good 20 points higher than she has EVER tested, thanks I'm sure in part to the wonders of ADHD medication, but also thanks to what? Her developing enough language competence to follow the directions this time and show what she can actually do? Do these tests really measure anything effectively for a child with language delays? My impulse is no, but the research I've looked at indicates that IQ testing does have reliability for autistic children. And it's used, still, for decision-making: IQ test + Vineland Scales = money, or not, from the county/state/government. It's what Lovaas used to help demonstrate "recovery."

So why am I happy anyway? Even though I know it's all bullshit....